How to market your small business

The basis of good marketing is to make sure that you have a clear understanding of what your customer's needs are and then you can develop a marketing plan to address them. If a business is going to grow they must have an effective marketing plan. The goal of a good marketing plan is to increase your customer base. You can increase this base, in basically 4 different ways. These ways include:

• Getting more customers
• Persuading your existing customers to buy more
• Persuading your existing customers to more expensive products (also known as up selling).
• Persuading your existing customers to purchase products that are more profitable.

While each of these ways can improve your bottom line, marketing is done basically to acquire more customers. The reason for this is that by expanding your customer base, the sales you make can come from a larger base.

So if you are going to acquire more customers you will need to-

• Take the time to sufficient research in order to create the most effective marketing plan, for your products.


• Develop a strategy for the development of your products, so that it will appeal to more customers within your target market.


• Go over your pricing to make sure that your products and services are priced as competitively as possible.


• Use solution marketing in order to develop the most effective message within your marketing materials.

The key to successful marketing is to understand who are you are marketing to. You must understand the importance of developing a marketing plan that will appeal to your target market. This is important since not everyone will be interested in buying your product or service. Therefore using a shotgun approach (where you try to appeal to everyone) in your marketing is rarely effective or successful. If you take the time to position your marketing, where it is most likely to appeal to your intended target market, you are far more likely to find your marketing, being productive and successful.

Small business owners most often have a much more limited marketing budget. This makes it even more crucial that they get the highest value, from every marketing dollar that they spend. Savvy small business owners have found that the most successful marketing is often done when it is combined with sales activities. This way the sales activity can help to decrease how much it spent out of the marketing budget, without impacting the overall marketing strategy. This combination of sales and marketing will often provide priceless insight into your intended customer and what they are looking for.

Small business owners should not be discouraged by their limited marketing budget. This only means that you will have to be more creative in your marketing efforts. The only limits to your small business marketing are the limits of your creativity. Other small business owners have found the following marketing ideas successful.

• Ask other small business owners or vendors, if they would be interested in participating in coop marketing.


• Ask your existing customers for referrals.


• Offer existing customers incentives to buy more.


• Consider using public relations. This is a free or low cost way to get your small business noticed in the media. Use public relations to position yourself as an expert in your field.


• Use special events to market your business. You can piggyback onto another event that your customers may be interested. If you are willing to sell tickets, offer to gather food donations, or be a part of a walk a thon, you can find that your small business is getting some good marketing. However, you need to make sure that you are sincere in your efforts, because today's educated consumer is quick to spot an insincere or self serving marketing strategy.